TFL Top 5: Ways New Car Technology Is Making Our Lives Worse [Video]

New car technology is constantly evolving, but is it all good? TFL is here to help, as Roman Mica and Andre Smirnov count down the top ways it’s making our lives worse.

No list of this type would be complete without infotainment systems. Most cars these days have them, but everywhere you look people are on their cell phones why they’re driving.

Why is this? It’s because infotainment systems in cars aren’t intuitive like a cell phone. They’re all different, as each manufacturer develops their own, and thanks to corporate lawyers, they can’t even be used when driving. So what do people do? They pull out their cell phones to search for a restaurant or to get directions if they’re lost, because the in-car navigation system won’t let them. Heck, it won’t even let the passenger do it!

Another annoying piece of new-car technology is driver assistance. These systems are supposed to help the driver by alerting if something bad is about to happen. The problem is, they are designed for the lowest common denominator, or how Roman said it, for the worst driver in driver’s education class. So sometimes, they’re overdone.

Lane keep assist is one example, as Roman explains in the video, the Volvo system warned of the car leaving the lane while it was still in the lane. Another example is adaptive cruise control. Thanks again to the legal department, the gap between the car in front is usually so wide that other cars keep cutting in front.

Of course, all these features cost money, which is another way tech is making lives worse. Everything costs more money, but, especially in options like navigation, it’s mostly just code and isn’t really additional hardware. The consumer ends up paying a lot of money for something that costs the company very little to make.

Find out what Roman and Andre had to say about autonomous cars, and find out the other piece of new car technology that’s making lives worse by watching the video above.

John’s love of cars started an early age. He bought his first issue of Road & Track at age 12, and has wanted to be an automotive writer ever since. He believes in the old adage that it’s more fun to drive a slow car fast than a fast car slow. When not writing about cars, John is a professional computer geek and lives with his wife and dogs on the high plains of Wyoming.